He wound up the corner of his lips in the slightest attempt at a farewell smile and thought he almost saw a gleam of recognition in her eyes. Then he walked into the back hallway heading for the exit and didn’t look back.
The backdoor was still open, and he gazed out at Terry standing next to the truck.
“Let’s go, man, I’m gettin’ real tired of breathin’ this air…”
He hurried to the trunk, set the box inside and closed the hatch. Terry noticed him freeze for an instant when he closed the door so he walked back toward him to check in.
“You okay?” He caringly looked over his friend who seemed in even worse shape than he was before.
Jimmy had no idea how to tell him what he’d just been through so he didn’t bother. He nodded to let his friend know he was good enough to respond, at least, and Terry put his hand on his shoulder.
“Yeah…” Jimmy finally found it in him to answer. He took in a deep breath then let it go. “…Let’s just get out of here.”
Hell’s Beasts Hunger
“So, how’d you do it?”
Smoke was dying to get all the gritty little details of his father’s act of personal self-sacrifice. The streets were spacious an uneventful, without so much as a lowly vagrant to gawk at. A little conversation, he figured, might go a long way toward him not being entirely bored to demon-tears.
“What? Get yer mom in the sack?”
“Nah, man… Your eyes? How’d you get ’em outta the sockets?”
He pushed out a hmph and shook his head. “Wasn’t easy… Had to pin my eyelids to my eyebrows to start. Then I used a razorblade to cut the soft tissue around ’em that attached ’em to the sockets…” He made a back and forth cutting motion with his hand to add visual stimuli to his storytelling. “After that, I used a spoon, popped ’em out far enough to grab, then stretched the fuckers ’til I had room to cut whatever the hell it was behind ’em holdin’ ’em in place.”
“That’s some hardcore shit, old man. You think it’s gonna save your ass from gettin’ merked when we get back?”
Kalon tore at the bottom of his prison shirt and ripped off a long, rectangular strip of orange cloth. He felt for each end and tied them around his head like a blindfold.
“Don’t think so. I figure yer mom’ll wanna do me like she did you. In fact, I’m countin’ on it. Planin’ on makin’ a stand by ’er side. Not gonna be able to do that if I’m still breathin’. Wouldn’t be much of an asset as a blind ol’ man, now would I?”
He nodded. His father was more hip to the scene than he would’ve guessed. He wondered if he and his mom already had this whole thing mapped out years before, but got the impression his dear ol’ dad didn’t have the brain capacity to strategize that far ahead. He was more than likely just along for the ride. He didn’t bother asking. He was more interested in getting back to the cemetery and getting this whole “Hell on Earth” thing moving along… And maybe coining a spot of chaos in the city streets in the meantime.
“Hey…” He eyeballed his father with a grin. “You wanna drive?”
Kalon turned his bleeding face toward him, manifesting as serious a look as he could muster.
“I don’t got no eyeballs, son…and I’ve been in prison for the past sixteen years of my life. …You bet yer sweet ass I wanna drive!”
“Good, cuz I’m starvin’ and I brought a snack. I’d hate to eat while operating the vehicle. Wouldn’t wanna fuck up the upholstery.”
Smoke stomped on the brakes, catching his father off guard who reached out and braced himself against the dash. The Camaro came to a stop in the middle of the street and he and his father both got out to switch places. Kalon walked around the front of the car with his hand trailing its contours like braille along its hood. Smoke took the opposite route with a pitstop at the trunk for brunch. He lifted the lid and took his pick of four severed heads that’d been rolling around inside, softening up the meat between their ears with the bumpy ride.
“This dude looks like he had a good head on his shoulders.” He palmed a black man’s noggin who had on a pair of prescription glasses with a strapped attached that kept them tight around his face. He shut the trunk and walked around the side of the car with the head hanging at arm’s length, a stream of blood from its neck trailing Smoke to his seat.
“Alright, old man… Show me what you got.”
Kalon revved the engine and shook the stick around in neutral to get a feel for her.
“Buckle up, boy! …This is bound to get ugly.”
He punched the gas and dropped the clutch—
The Camaro took off screaming along the asphalt with a cloud of white smoke twirling in its wake and the smell of fuel burning through the vents. Kalon let out some sort of cowboylike yowl and Smoke just chuckled and dug his hand into the neck of the head resting on his lap like a bucket of popcorn. The g-force from second gear pushed the two men back in their seats when it tried breaking free of Earth’s hold, and Kalon laughed at the sensation like a drunken bull rider at a rodeo.
“How’m I doin’?”
“Driftin’ a little to the right. Try not to scratch—” Sparks flew passed the passenger window when the side of the Camaro scraped along a row of parked cars. The sideview mirror snapped off and flipped over the roof, and the passenger window eventually shattered under the pressure. “…the paint.”
Smoke finished his sentence about three seconds too late and looked over to his father who’d adjusted his path enough to be more centered in the road as he pushed into third. The smile on Kalon’s face was so juvenile that Smoke couldn’t help but laugh while he dusted the broken glass off his chest. They tore down the empty city street doing seventy-five and the roar of the engine echoed through the vacant blocks.
“So how much you know about what’s goin’ on?” Smoke figured now would be a good time for that “father/son” chat he’d been anticipating.
“Only as much as I seen in my dreams.” With both windows down, they raised their voices to talk over the wind and howling engine. “Yer mother’s influence is burnt into my head like a brand on a steer’s ass. It started when she was young. There’s somethin’ about that woman’s eyes… Fuckin’ frightenin’ as all fuck, but damn near irresistible. Had no idea what it was when we were kids. Just thought it was ’er curves and ’er lips. Turns out it was those eyes.” He seemed to indulge in the visual, appreciating the beauty and detail of his memories. “Takin’ a swim in ’er stare is like puttin’ a cold needle in yer arm. …You ever chase the dragon?”
“Fuckin’ A.”
“Then you know what it is I’m sayin’.”
The car jerked around and a thump rolled under it when something bounced against its frame and was spit out the backside.
“What the fuck was that?”
“Nothin’… Don’t trip. It was already dead… Down shift. You gotta right turn comin’ up.”
Kalon dropped it into third and let the transmission slow them down.
“Again.”
He followed his son’s lead and bumped it down to second.
“Hard right, right…now…”
He pulled the Camaro against its own inertia, the tires squealing alongside his 30mph, 90-degree turn. The tail-end got away from him a little and crunched up against a car that was flipped over on the other side of the street. The back tires fishtailed off the impact and he let up on the gas.
“Straighten her out.”
He let the feel of centrifugal force pull him back into a straight line. “Am I good?”
“You’re fuckin’ Dale Earnhardt, man. You sure you can’t see outta them holes in your face?”
Kalon smiled perversely. “So, where were we?”
“Her eyes.”
“…Her fuckin’ eyes…” He sneered at the thought. “They’ve been showin’ me this day for the past two dec
ades. Ever since I offed ’er sister for ’er. They come to me in my dreams. Haunt me when I’m awake even. …I can see them right now…beckonin’ me…”
“What d’you think she wants with you?”
“No fuckin’ clue… Don’t give a shit, neither. All I know is, in the beginning, she needed children. Somethin’ about ’er bloodline… After I killed yer aunt, havin’ yer sister was the priority. She only needed two more lives to complete ’er spell – or whatever the fuck you wanna call it – but havin’ a few extra rug rats around couldn’t hurt. …You never know when one’s gonna up an’ die by accident or some shit…”
“So, I was born to die?” He wasn’t offended; he just wanted to say it out loud, fiddle with the thought of it out in the open.
“We’re all born to die, son. Difference is, yer death was meant for somethin’.”
Smoke liked the sound of that. He’d never thought of his life as important or in any way meaningful. To think he had a purpose, and saw it through, filled him with a sense of pride he’d never known.
“Left turn comin’ up.”
“How soon?”
“Hard t’say… The fog’s real thick this close to the graveya—”
His sentence was interrupted by a holler and heavy thud smashing against the front of the car. It sounded like a man’s voice yelling something like “hey” or “hell” but it was hard to make out over the engine. It turns out, the car cut a wandering dead soldier right in half, exploding the bottom of him into chunks of bloodied cemetery soil and flipping the top of him over the roof.
“What I hit this time? …And don’t tell me it was dead already, ’cause I heard ’im screamin’…”
“Ah, technically he was dead,” Smoke answered in mid-mouthful of spongy brain meat, “but you didn’t get all of ’im. He’ll be cool.”
Behind them, the upper torso of the severed dead-man rolled to a stop on the black asphalt and dragged himself off the street using his arms like oars in a kayak. Eventually, he’d either hitch a ride with one of his demon kin or find his own way twenty-five blocks back to the cursed soil that could replace his missing half after five or six hours of chillaxing in a closed grave. He didn’t need to worry about bugs or animals finishing him off in the meantime; his undead flesh was poison, even to those things on Earth that fed on the dead.
“Drop it down to third. I think that turn’s comin’ up on the next block.”
“What’s the city look like right now? I mean, I know it’s empty…but how much of Hell is here?”
“From what I can feel, it’s like this whole place is alive… The dead own the streets; the sky’s swimming with giant, Hell spawned worms; the dark has a mind of its own; the air tastes like human blood and misery… It’s fuckin’ beautiful, man…”
“I’ll hafta take yer word for it. Smells like shit to me…”
“That’s probably me… I think my balls are growin’ some kinda fungus. …Hard left right here.”
The tires squealed and Kalon tore through the corner, manipulating the gears in accordance.
“Think I’m gettin’ a feel for ’er!” He straightened out the Camaro’s path and accelerated back into third. “So, what’s it like?”
“What? Being dead?”
He nodded.
Smoke took a second to think about it before settling on an answer.
“S’like…droppin’ ten hits of acid, smokin’ a blunt laced with PCP, and snortin’ a rail of coke that’s longer than your fuckin’ arm.” Yeah, that about summed it up. “Pure fuckin’ insanity. With just enough control to let you actually think in a straight line. …It’s fuckin’ amazing, man. Kicks the shit out of any drug I’ve ever snorted, shot, or inhaled.”
“Huh… Sounds promisin’.”
“And the power… It’s not just some drug-trip illusion. It’s real. I threw a fuckin’ car outta my way like it was made of paper. I got shot full of more holes than a fuckin’ whiffle ball and it didn’t even faze me. …Yeah, I played like I was out for a few minutes, but that was just to see the look on the pig’s face when I skewered him with a tire iron after he thought I was toast.”
“Tire Iron? That yer weapon of choice?” He scoffed at his son’s approach to murder. “…Kids these days got no imagination…”
“I’ve been draggin’ around this giant fucking ax I got from the prison since then. This shit’s pretty badass… But I prefer guns.” He pulled out the pistol he took from one of the prison guards and cocked the slide. “Police issue. Still loaded.”
“Zombies with fuckin’ guns, huh? …Just don’t seem right…”
“Fuck ‘right’. I wanna shoot people. Like a fuckin’ cowboy. Thought you’d appreciate that. Fuckin’ John Wayne type shit.”
“A gun’s what got me locked up. They make too much noise… Cause a big fuckin’ scene. Did some readin’ in the joint; studied up on swordplay. Been itchin’ to put the knowledge to use.”
“You’re gonna bring a fuckin’ sword to a gunfight? You think you’re Jackie Chan or some shit?”
“If I’m already dead, I can kill you however the fuck I want, alright? Like you said: bullets didn’t faze you. So how d’ya think yer guns would do against my swords if you don’t got no fuckin’ arms an’ legs?”
“You gotta point… But that’s assumin’ moms is gonna turn you. What if she decides to feed you to her pet wolf? …You think I smell bad… Wait ’til you meet this fuckin’ thing.”
He shook his head. “If there’s one thing yer mother’s not, it’s scorned. She never gave a shit about me enough to be mad or wanna punish me. I’ve always only done what she’s asked. She was my Queen years before she ever actually was one. I’ll serve ’er in death ten times as loyal as I did in life. …A smart ruler wouldn’t throw away a subject like me.” He nodded to himself, confident in his words. “I’ll be one of you soon enough. …And when I am, I’m gonna happily slice my way through whatever resistance that fuckin’ halfwit in the Whitehouse sends our way.”
Smoke shrugged. “Whatever soaps your stroke, old man. I still wanna shoot people. But when the bullets run out, don’t think I won’t hack me the fuck outta some soldier boys with my fireman’s ax. …I’ll be Paul fuckin’ Bunyan in a forest full of US military stick-figures. I’ll turn a whole battalion of government puppets into chopped up piles of human toothpicks.”
Kalon chuckled. “I take it back… Turns out you kids got an imagination after all.”
Smoked grinned with a mouth full of cerebellum and gazed onto the street beside them. “Whoa, whoa, whoa…hold up.” He spotted something out of the corner of his dead eyes that sparked a malicious intrigue.
“What? What’s the problem?”
“Stop the car for a minute.”
“What is it?”
“A kid…”
“So? Who gives a shit? …You still hungry or somethin’?”
“Nah… But what the fuck is he doin’ out here? I’m gonna go grab him. Moms’ll like ’im. The purer the soul, the more beastly the demon she can stuff it with.” He set his severed head down on the floor of the car, got out and walked toward the little African-American boy strolling down the adjacent block.
“Ayo, kid! Why the fuck aren’t you dead?! Shouldn’t you be somebody’s shit stain by now?”
The boy stopped and turned around at the sound of his voice. He looked to be about four years old, dirty with smudges of blood on his clothes, but seemed fine. He had a stuffed Elmo under his arm, his two middle fingers in his mouth, and big bronze eyes.
Smoke walked up to him, towering above, and picked him up to raise him eye to eye.
“Can you talk?”
The boy nodded.
“Then fuckin’ say somethin’, you little freak.”
He took his fingers out of his mouth and made a face. “You smell bad.”
S
moke scowled. “If people keep tellin’ me that shit I might actually start to believe it… Let’s go, bite-size. You’re comin’ with me.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re ugly and ugly people hafta do what I say.”
The boy didn’t seem convinced. “Why?”
“Cuz I’m the king of fucking ugly. Now shut the fuck up and quit askin’ stupid questions. Get in the car.”
He put the boy down next to the Camaro and the little guy climbed into the backseat. He reached for the seatbelt, clicked it around his waist, then put his fingers back in his mouth. Smoke watched him secure himself in the back, impressed with his obedience. He then flopped back into the front seat and settled in.
“You ready, Mother Teresa?” Kalon figured he’d poke fun at his son while he had the chance.
“Blow me, old man. This kid is fuckin’ gold.”
“If you say so.”
He put the car back in gear and started back down the block.
Smoke sat there for a minute, still surprised how well behaved the boy was, then decided on continuing where he’d left off with the snack-food between his feet. He grabbed the head, took a piece of brain from the bottom of its skull, mouthed it, then reached up to adjust the rearview mirror. He figured his dad wasn’t using it so he could aim it at whatever the hell he wanted. He tilted it to inspect the specimen in the backseat and the kid just sat there quietly, sucking on his dirty middle fingers, staring back at smoke with big eyes. Smoke took another bite out of his skull-bowl while he watched the boy like he was expecting him to do tricks, then got bored and nudged his father on the arm.
“Watch this…” He extended the head he ate from back toward the boy. “Hey, kid…you hungry?” Kalon chuckled and Smoke flashed a bloody-toothed grin the boy’s way.
The boy looked at him innocently, then reached out and put his hand in through the bottom of the severed neck. He pinched off a piece of neck-meat with veins dangling from his grip, took his fingers out of his mouth and replaced them with the dead flesh.
“Holy shit… He’s eating it!” Smoke laughed out loud. “He’s actually fucking eating it! Haha!!”
Blood Magik- A Cold Day In Hell Page 34
